{"id":25885,"date":"2026-04-24T08:36:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25885"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:36:26","slug":"cms-extends-medicares-short-term-bridge-program-for-glp-1-obesity-drug-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=25885","title":{"rendered":"CMS Extends Medicare\u2019s Short-Term Bridge Program for GLP-1 Obesity Drug Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(By Juliette Cubanski for The Kaiser Family Foundation published April 23, 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that its temporary program to cover GLP-1 drugs for obesity in Medicare, called the BALANCE model, will not launch as scheduled on January 1, 2027. Instead, CMS is extending the duration of a separate short-term program, called the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, which was originally scheduled to run from July-December 2026 but will now run through the end of 2027. Under the Bridge program, eligible beneficiaries can get Medicare coverage of GLP-1s for obesity for a $50 copay.  Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/quick-take\/cms-extends-medicares-short-term-bridge-program-for-glp-1-obesity-drug-coverage\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/quick-take\/cms-extends-medicares-short-term-bridge-program-for-glp-1-obesity-drug-coverage\/\">here&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"147\" height=\"138\" class=\"wp-image-7499\" style=\"width: 147px;\" src=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Kaiser-Family-Foundation.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><strong>Notice:<\/strong>\u00a0The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(By Juliette Cubanski for The Kaiser Family Foundation published April 23, 2026) The Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,21,15],"tags":[2058,80,1236,385,238,65],"class_list":["post-25885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cms","category-health-care-finance","category-part-dprescription-drugs","tag-balance","tag-cms","tag-glp-1","tag-healthcare-costs","tag-healthcare-finance","tag-medicare-part-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25886,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25885\/revisions\/25886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}